Big Water Film Festival - Bay Theater - Ashland - Wisconsin

15th Annual Big Water Film Festival
January 6-February 3, 2023
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This Year’s Films

The 15th Annual Big Water Film Festival will be shown virtually over five weeks, from January 6, 2023, to February 10, 2023.  We've got 22 great films for you to watch, plus a live chat with filmmakers Melody Gilbert and Steve Date.  To see our new line-up, click here.

Sponsorship

Thank you to all our businesses and individuals who have sponsored us in past years!  If you would like to sponsor the 15th Annual Big Water Film Festival, to be held virtually in January, 2023, we would definitely appreciate your financial support.  For more information on sponsorships, please click here.

Volunteer

Because the Festival this year will once again be virtual, we are not recruiting volunteers. We hope that next year we'll feel safe enough to return to some live events, in which case we will rely on volunteers to help out. To put your name on our volunteer list, please click here. We'll get in touch with you.

Want to submit a film?

Our call for entries for the 15th Big Water Film Festival in January, 2023, is now closed.  But it's not too soon to think about sending in your film for the 16th Festival!  Entries for that Festival will open in February, 2023.  All films must be entered through Film Freeway.  Please go to our Film Freeway listing by clicking here.  Our Film Freeway site has more information.

News

The next Big Water Film Festival will be virtual once again.

After much consideration, the Big Water Film Festival Committee has decided that once again our Festival will be virtual only.  The COVID pandemic keeps throwing all of us curveballs.  We have no way of knowing how dangerous congregating in a movie theater will be this Fall, and yet the pretty long lead time we need to put on the Festival required us to decide this summer whether we feel comfortable inviting our audience to gather in person.  The decision was made easier by the great reception given to our virtual 14th Annual Festival.  Many more people– from all around the world– saw our films virtually than usually see them in person, and a lot of people told us they appreciated the safety and convenience of viewing the films online.

Still, we miss getting together in person with our audience and filmmakers, and hope this year to re-introduce our popular Cinema and Cinnamon Rolls discussions with filmmakers in a live virtual programming format.

As with last year, tickets for the Festival will be absolutely free.  We had such great support last year through voluntary donations that we were able to pay all our expenses even though we sold no tickets.   Please keep supporting us this year, so that we can keep making the Festival free and open to anyone who wants to watch.

Just as a reminder of some of the great films we screened last year, here are the winners of the 14th Big Water Film Festival Awards:

Audience Favorite:  Better Than Neil Armstrong – Alireza Ghasemi – Iran. (Week 1)

Best Short:  Cold Storage – Thomas Freundlich-  Finland.  (Week 7)

Best Short-Short:  Amanzi Olwandle – Timothy Hay – South Africa. (Week 7)

Best Feature:  Skate or Die – Ryan Ferguson – United States. (Week 2)

Best Documentary:  Say His Name – Five Days for George Floyd – Cy Dodson – United States.  (Week 2)